Burnout(Docbuzzard)
Burnout Jason Malloy was just another nobody who had slipped through the cracks of society in Chi Town. His story begins in a simple way. No, actually his story begins well before his time, before the Cataclysm. There was an eccentric physicist named Hiram Goldfarb. Goldfarb specialized in string theory research, and did some fairly amazing work. Firstly, he actually found a way to make practical application of this esoteric science possible (making himself a mint), as well as expanding the boundaries of the science from the subatomic scale to real world size. He postulated mega strings, which could be generated by energy interactions on a scale never seen in common reality, involving energy sources otherwise unprecedented. His mega string theory was generally dismissed as crank nonsense (it involved 'souls', 'magic', 'mass death' and other things which didn't quite seem kosher to the rest of the physicists in the world) so he retired to a remote mansion in the woods of Pennsylvania complete with a bomb shelter (his work and its rejection did manage to make him a touch paranoid). There he lived expanding the boundaries of mega string theory and reading his extensive comic book collection. Then one day the wars came. Hiram had a top of the line set of connections to the outside world with satellite and internet links with as much bandwidth as possible. He saw what was coming, and figured out there was a possibility that if everything went wrong, he would actually see his mega string theory in practice. This filled him with both excitement and dread. removing himself, his notes, and his prized comic book collection (which took a while to move) into his bunker he decided to wait out developments. The Cataclysm hit and his theories were proven correct but at a dreadful cost. The ley lines (mega strings) crossed the world, and rifts opened up all over the place. The world was shattered. After spending some time cataloging the events with his remote sensors and using this data to confirm and refine his theories, Hiram decided he had seen enough. The horrors which existed outside his bunker were too much for him to bear without the purpose of theoretical science to keep his mind distracted. He blew he brains out (but in a tidy fashion to avoid sullying his notes or comics). There his corpse sat for years and years. Then one day, a couple years ago, a CS expedition stumbled on the bunker entrance which searching some ruins. They were able to cut their way into it and examined the place. Inside was a corpse and a trove of documents. The CS grunts had no idea of what the had found, and certainly no notion that the comics were to be kept separate from the physics papers. The collection was shipped back to Chi Town to be examined by scientists there. The scientists found this trove to be amazing. There was an explanation for the rifts and ley lines and journals documenting the exploits of super powered humans. Of course they had no reason to believe the comics to be fiction. The world of Rifts is screwy enough that anything is believable. A memo was written and handed up the chain of command. Super beings could be engineered. An alternative to the expensive tech needed to fight the D Bee menace could be available. Word came down all the way from the top that this should be investigated. Gamma ray generators were constructed, spiders were irradiated, and cosmic ray exposure methods were devised. Initially a number of devoted CS troopers were subjected to the enhancement experiments, but after producing a pile of irradiated corpses of well trained soldiers to no avail, a sweep of the seamy areas of Chi Town was used to 'recruit' a bunch of 'volunteers'. Here is where Jason comes into the story. Just another street rat in Chi Town, Jason lived on the edge of society doing odd jobs when he couldn't steal what he needed to survive. His parents had settled into Chi Town after their village was wiped out by D Bees. Of course the reality of Chi Town was not what the recruiters had painted it as, and his parents were eventually put down from their continued grumbling leaving Jason an orphan on the streets from a fairly young age. He was caught in the dragnet and taken into the superhuman research lab. Watching as his fellow 'volunteers' were killed by irradiation, burnt to crisps in experimental reactors, and subjected to insect bites until their systems gave up, Jason was bereft of hope. Eventually Jason's turn came. However he was a bit different. The rest of the subjects were all born and raised in Chi Town itself. Jason was different. His parents were from the outside and had been exposed to enough ley line and rift energy to modify their genetic code. Thus when he was pitched into a fusion reactor to see what it would do (the previous 99 test subjects made a rather pretty collection of ions), he suddenly was transformed into an energy being and survived. The scientists and technicians on the project were ecstatic. Convinced that they had found the solution to the issues the procedure they duplicated exactly what was done to Jason on five more subjects, creating five more pretty clouds of ions (which dispersed rather quickly). Then it dawned on them, that something much be unique about Jason. At this point Jason was kept psionically suppressed and had been kept under examination since his powers had manifested. They subjected him to every test which they were capable of, and determined that his DNA sequence was modified somehow. It was decided that he should be shipped down to the Lone Star facilities for examination since that was where the premier CS geneticists resided. Loaded onto a transport and on the way to Lone Star, the transport was attacked by D Bees and the mind suppression was removed. Jason woke up, and melted his way out through the transport flying away while the D Bees finished off the transport's crew. He then went to ground and spend some time learning how his powers worked. He found he could transform into energy (high energy plasma if you want to get technical, but with Jason's education or lack thereof, energy will do). He also found he could emit weak energy pulses and read back the reflections like a radar system. In addition his body was made more resilient and his reaction time was vastly improved. Of course the downside is that he no longer looks at all human with a thick rind of charred looking skin over his whole body. He surely couldn't go home looking like that, so he went north to Tolkeen where someone who liked like him might not be shunned. There he found a country gearing up for war. It was to be war with the Coalition States. After being treated as he had, this suited Jason just fine. He signed on with one Mercenary band and found in several battles against the CS. His powers made him into quite a destructive force on the battlefield. His ability and general willingness to toss himself into the worst of the fighting got him promoted several times, and he stood as a senior ranked NCO by the time Tolkeen actually fell. His band, having seen the writing on the wall once Tolkeen was hit from the north, started a withdrawal covering for civilian evacuation, to at least do something useful on the way out of the area. Character Name: Jason Malloy Alias: Burn Out Race: Human Experiment O.C.C.: City Rat Occupation: Mercenary Alignment: Unprincipled XP Level: 6 XP Points: ATTRIBUTES I.Q.: 13 M.E.: 19 M.A.: 9 P.S.: 23 P.P.: 27 P.E.: 27 P.B.: 7 Speed:32 PHYSICAL DATA PPE: MDC: 105 (165 in plasma form) Age: 22 Sex: M Height: 5' 9 Weight: 190 Description: Once upon a time he was a fairly average looking sort. Stocky and a bit beat up with a nose that obviously had been broken a couple of times. Then the CS experiment didn't do him any favors. He came out of that with his skin looking like charred meat. Racial Abilities Experiment Odd Skin texture -2 PB Natural Abilities Perception: +3 Charm/Impress: Trust/Intimidate: Special Abilities APS Plasma 1.Plasma Bolt 220 ft range. 1D6x10 +12 damage +2 to strike 2.Plasma Touch 1d6x10 damage 3.Partial Invulnerability and Intangibility -physical objects pass through him(no damage), explosions, radiation, fire and heat do no damage. Electricity and energy attacks do half damage. 4.Melt Obstacles 5.Flight 180 MPH 6.+60 MDC 7.Cannot touch things without causing damage in plasma form. Horror factor 13 8.Vulnerabilities- Cold/water do double damage. Magic weapons and creatures of magic do normal damage. Vacuum does 3d6 per minute. Extraordinary Physical Prowess: + 4PP, +10 Spd, +3 auto dodge, +1 attack Extraordinary Physical Endurance: +7 PE, 105 MDC Radar : +4 init, +2 parry/dodge, +2 strike +1 attack O.C.C. Skills Literate English 85% Language English 98% Language Spanish 78% Barter 69% Computer Operation 85% Streetwise 64% Tailing 85% Pilot Motorcycle: 98% Pilot Automobile: 82% Pilot Bicycle 88% Math: Basic 80% WP Pistol HTH Expert Running +1 PE +9 Spd +5 SDC O.C.C. Related Skills Boxing +2 PS +5 SDC, +1 attack + 2parry/dodge+ 1 roll with punch Prowl 85% Acrobatics+1 PP, +1 PE, +1 PS, +4 SDC, Sense of balance 98% Walk tightrope 93% Climb Rope 97% Back Flip 98% Gymnastics +2 PS, +2 PS, +1 PP, +7 SDC 93% work parallel bars Wrestling +2 PS, +1 PE, +12 SDC Climbing 90% Pick Lock 75% Pick Pockets 65% Computer Hacking 65% 2 Radio Basic 80% 4 Cryptography 50% 6 Lore: Demons and Monsters 30% Secondary Skills Cook: 65% Science: Chemistry 60% Pilot: Truck 64% Sensory Equipment 60% Automobile Mechanics 55% WP knife Athletics +4 Spd, +2 SDC +1 PS Body Building +2 PS +10 SDC Combat Data HTH Type: Expert Number of Attacks: 7 Initiative Bonus: +4 Strike Bonus: +10 Parry Bonus: +15 Dodge Bonus: +15 Auto Dodge: +9 HTH Damage Bonus: +8 Bonus to Roll w/Punch: +10 Bonus to Pull a Punch: +11 Bonus to Disarm: +2 Critical Strike on 18,19,20 Other: Main attack would be the plasma bolts from APS Plasma at +12 1d6x10 +12 MD Weapon Proficiencies WP Knife +1 WP Pistol +1 Saving Throw Bonuses +2 Save vs. psychic attack/insanity +26% save vs. coma/death +7 save vs. magic/poiso